As The Worker goes to press more than 100 of the 166 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are on a hunger strike to protest their imprisonment. Most of the prisoners have been there for 11 years. According to lawyers who visit the prison the number of hunger strikers has continued to grow since the strike began in early February.

The prisoners have never been charged with crimes. Most were captured during the U.S. war against Afghanistan and according to international law should have been treated as prisoners of war and released when the U.S. declared the war over.

Instead Bush and then Obama relied on special "executive powers" to declare them "enemy combatants" and then trample their rights, as well as the U.S. constitution, under foot.

Rather than uphold the most elementary human and legal rights, the U.S. government has not only kidnapped and detained the Guantanamo prisoners for 11 years, it has tortured them.

Today the U.S. government is trying to cover up its crimes by continuing to hold the prisoners. In order to suppress the strikers the U.S. military has already begun force feeding a large number of them.

U.S. imperialism refuses to be restrained either by international law or the most elementary demands of humanity and democracy. In its "war on terrorism," it asserts that its military might gives it the right to be judge, jury and executioner of the entire human race and to commit any crimes against the people.